As NASA promises to extend the science operations for its Hubble Space Telescope for an additional five years, tomorrow, they plan to not only provide a live stream of a major ground test at 10:05 a.m. EDT but will follow it up with a live media teleconference at 11 a.m. to discuss their initial assessment of the previous tests. NASA just confirmed a contract extension of $2.03 billion dollars, to cover the work necessary to continue the science program of the Hubble mission by the Space Telescope Science Institute until June 30th 2021. Hubble is expected to continue to provide valuable data...

For the first time ever, astronomers have discovered a vast cloud of high-energy particles called a wind nebula around a rare ultra-magnetic neutron star. A neutron star is the crushed core of a massive star that ran out of fuel, collapsed under its own weight, and exploded as a supernova, which are the strongest magnets in the universe. After reviewing the discovery of a newly found nebula which surrounds a magnetar known as Swift J1834.9-0846, a team researcher George Younes, a postdoctoral researcher at George Washington University in Washington found an unusual lopsided glow about 15 light-years across centered on the magnetar. ...

In a record-breaking first, NASA successfully created the largest fire set intentionally in space. The experiment was conducted aboard the uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft, a cargo vessel built by Virginia-based company Orbital ATK, which had departed from the International Space Station days earlier, after a nearly three-month stay at the orbiting lab. NASA officials ignited a piece of cotton-fiberglass cloth 1.3 feet wide by 3.3 feet long, during the first stage of the Spacecraft Fire Experiment, named Saffire-1. Before Saffire-1, the largest intentionally set fire in space had burned a sample just the size of an index card, NASA officials have said. Saffire-1 was the...

NASA has agreed to pay as much as $100,000 to Made in Space to conduct a feasibility study on the concept of turning asteroids into spacecraft. Made in Space is the company that has put two 3D printers on the International Space Station to serve the needs of NASA, and the company’s next goal is to pioneer the manufacturing of materials in space, using resources in space. Several companies, including Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, have talked about developing probes to travel to asteroids, surveying the asteroids for resources including water ice and precious metals, and bringing those materials back to the...

Tonight on Dark Thirty Radio NASA Is Going With “Space Dandruff” To Explain UFO’s Sightings Former NASA employee James Oberg says UFO sightings can all be explained by a phenomenon known as “space dandruff’. Oberg claims all sightings can be explained as ice crystals, insulation, debris and other tiny pieces of space stuff that were once on the spacecraft and are now floating in front of cameras and windows. Since they’re so tiny and moving between sunlight and shadows, they can’t be conclusively identified, but he is certain they’re “space dandruff.” Oberg says he’s not trying to say UFOs don’t exist, just...

Although many details still remain shrouded in mystery, CEO of SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk has hinted that he will conducting a series of missions starting in 2018, leading up to the first crewed mission to the Mars by 2024. In an on-stage interview at the Code Conference, Musk confirmed that he would announce his architecture for human missions to Mars in September at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. “The basic game plan is that we’re going to send a mission to Mars with every Mars opportunity from 2018 onwards,” Musk said. “The launches will...

Astronomers have now been able to observe the wavelengths of radio waves coming through Jupiter’s atmosphere, allowing them to gather enough detail to map the ammonia flows that lay beneath. A team, led by astronomer Imke de Pater from the University of California, Berkeley are working with the Very Large Array, radio telescope located in New Mexico to penetrate roughly 60 miles into the planet’s atmosphere. Team member Robert Sault, from the University of Melbourne in Australia explained “Jupiter’s rotation once every 10 hours usually blurs radio maps, because these maps take many hours to observe, but we have developed...

The US Federal Aviation Administration has just announced that they are in the process of reviewing an application to have an MX-1 lander launch to the Moon next year, land and conduct a series of analyses that will help pave the way to Mars. Moon Express, a California-based space company, hopes to launch by 2017 via a Los Angeles-based company Rocket Lab’s brand new Electron rocket, using the MX-1 lander which is powered by sunlight and hydrogen peroxide rocket fuel to explore the surface of the Moon over a two-week period in 2017. Moon Express co-founder Bob Richards says, “the coffee table-sized...

NASA is teaming up with scientists and students from four universities, in an effort to design humanoid robots to send to Mars. This 5’9, 275 pounds robot named Valkyrie, that can already walk and is learning to interact with people, will be used to carry out vital tasks in environments deadly to human beings. Holly Yanco, professor of computer science, explained “Up in the head, you can see we have a stereo camera pair, we hooked it up to an Oculus Rift, so somebody who’s remotely controlling the robot can see through the robot’s eyes.” It also has cameras on...

Tonight On Dark Thirty Radio Elon Musk Hopes We Are Living In A Virtual Reality When asked what the likelihood was that we are all living in a simulated matrix, founder of SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk used video games as an analogy. “40 years ago we had Pong – two rectangles and a dot. That’s where we were. Now 40 years later we have photo-realistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it’s getting better every year.” Musk says he himself believes that “it would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in...

Tonight On Dark Thirty Radio Planet Nine Stolen From Another Galaxy A recent hypothesis suggesting that the highly theorized Planet Nine is actually an exoplanet from a neighboring planetary system that our Sun stole from another star is now proving to be a very real explanation to its existence in our galaxy…if it exists at all. Astronomer Alexander Mustill from Lund University in Sweden, explained that the evidence is based on the strange alignment of rocky objects in the Kuiper belt, which seems to suggest that some kind of massive cosmic body is exerting a very strong gravitational force on...

NASA is now fighting back against claims made by former Microsoft chief technology officer, stating that there were flaws in their data regarding asteroids. In the paper, Myhrvold argued, that the models NASA researchers have used to estimate asteroid size from WISE observations fail to take into account key principles of radiation absorption and emission. As a result, these size estimates are far less reliable than NASA has claimed. However, NASA has just posted a rebuttal expressing faith in the NEOWISE analyses and noting that Myhrvold’s paper has yet to be peer-reviewed, explaining that examination of the paper by members...

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, it’s imperative that you have a plan. If you’re influenced by the movies, then you might be inclined to take your chances and head for the nearest pub or shopping mall in order to outwit a growing horde of bloodthirsty zombies. Your average shopping mall is equipped with all […]

Nobody has ever put a lander on the far side of the Moon before, but China is well on its way to being the first. Over the weekend, the country launched a craft called Queqiao – a satellite that will orbit the Moon to relay messages from the yet-to-be-launched lander, Chang’e-4. The Moon is tidally […]

It only lasted for a savage, fleeting instant, but for 8 intense seconds last week an eagle, a fox, and a rabbit flew across the sky as one. In an incredibly rare scene, photographers have captured the moment a bald eagle swooped down upon a young red fox clutching a rabbit, and in its whirlwind […]

There is something special and awe-inspiring about watching new land form. This is what is now happening in Hawai’i as its Kīlauea volcano erupts. Lava is reaching the ocean and building land while producing spectacular plumes of steam. These eruptions are hugely important for the creation of new land. But they are also dangerous. Where […]

Calling all citizen scientists! A project looking for those dying, exploding stars called supernovae out in deep space is also searching for volunteers to help in the work, and you can get real science credit for it along the way – even if you’ve never done a second of star-gazing before. Astronomers from the Australian National […]

When Jean-Lou Justine received the first photograph of a giant worm with a head like a shovel, the biologist was astounded. Hammerhead flatworms, which grow to a foot or more in length, do not belong in European vegetable gardens. “We do not have that in France,” said Justine, a professor at the National Museum of […]

Astronauts go through many physiological changes during their time in spaceflight, including lower muscle mass and slower muscle development. Similar symptoms can occur in the muscles of people on Earth’s surface, too. In fact, it could affect everyone to some extent later in life. “Age-related skeletal muscle disorders, such as sarcopenia, are becoming a greater […]

Exposure to early life trauma can lead to poor physical and mental health in some individuals, which can be passed on to their children. Studies in mice show that at least some of the effects of stress can be transmitted to offspring via environmentally-induced changes in sperm miRNA levels. A new epigenetics study raises the […]

Most renderings and reconstructions of pterodactyls and other extinct flying reptiles show a flight pose much like that of bats, which fly with their hind limbs splayed wide apart. But a new method for inferring how ancient animals might have moved their joints suggests that pterosaurs probably couldn’t strike that pose. “Most of the work […]

Corals growing in high-latitude reefs in Western Australia can regulate their internal chemistry to promote growth under cooler temperatures, according to new research at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at The University of Western Australia. The study, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that ocean warming may […]